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Four Ways Publishers Can (Can’t?) Compete With Amazon (Forbes)
Digital Book World 2015 conference chairman Mike Shatzkin points out a Harvard Business Review article that gives suppliers strategies for negotiating with aggregators and then interprets these strategies for book publishers interested in competing with Amazon. Problem is, they mostly won’t work for book publishers. More.

Risk-Free Publishing (DBW)
A new publishing company, Inkshares, combines crowd-funding with traditional publishing in a new model that feels a bit like “risk-free” publishing. It also has plans to cut regular readers in on the action. More.

NY AG: Apple to Pay (CNBC)
The New York Attorney General announced this week that Apple would have to pay upwards of $400 million to consumers if it loses its upcoming appeal.

Digital Comics Grow in 2013 (PW)
Digital comic sales in the U.S. grew to $90 million in 2013, according to new numbers. It’s a bit more than 10% of the overall revenue.

One thought on “Would You Buy ‘Kindle Unlimited’?”

When it comes to subscription services it’s all about who has the best content. So far none of the services have been all that great about signing up the top titles. The biggest problem I see with Kindle Unlimited at the present time is that it is filled with:

* Self-published authors in KDP Select
* Amazon Imprint Authors
* Titles from some progressive small presses (like Open Road)
* A few titles that Amazon has special arrangements with (like Harry Potter)
* A few titles that Amazon has put in against the publisher’s wishes (like Hunger Games)

I think if subscription is the future (and I think it might be), the big winner here is going to by Oyster as they already have the biggest selection of top titles and I see it as increasing. Publishers won’t want to give Amazon more rope to hang themselves, so they will keep out their titles from KU. Amazon pays a huge premium for the titles they put in against the publisher’s will so they can’t do too many of these. My guess is the traditional publishers will bolster Oyster to help defeat Amazon. That being said…Amazon has a knack for succeeding at whatever it sets its mind to, so if you bet based on track record, you have to think Amazon will, one way or another, win the book subscription war.